With four goals in three games, Eren Dinkci has not only attracted attention in the Bundesliga. Will he make it into the Turkish national team?
Hoping for a national team nomination: Eren Dinkci. IMAGO/Team 2
The Bremen team recently had to find out very painfully how good their player really is. Werder’s loanee, of all people, scored two goals in Heidenheim’s first Bundesliga win in a 4-2 win against his parent club. The 21-year-old had previously scored in Dortmund (2-2), and at the weekend Dinkci scored the consolation goal with Heidenheim’s only shot on goal in the 4-1 defeat in Leverkusen.
The loan to the promoted team in order to gain a foothold in the first division as a regular player seems to have served its purpose for Eren Dinkci, who is under contract in Bremen until 2025. But the Bremen-born son of Turkish parents is also getting closer and closer to another big dream: the senior national team. That of Türkiye, mind you. “I’m there every year, my family comes from Samsun on the Black Sea, we only speak Turkish at home, so my heart beats Turkish,” emphasizes Dinkci, who has already played for the Turkish U19, but also for the German U 20 accrued. The fast and strong offensive player has been in Turkish focus for a long time. “I already had a phone call with Stefan Kuntz when he took over the Turkey A team,” reveals Dinkci, “but since I only had short assignments, it was difficult to nominate me for a course.”
Does Montella see it like Kuntz?
But things now look different. Dinkci is placed in Heidenheim and scores – and Kuntz would have actually nominated him for the European Championship qualifiers in Croatia (October 12th) and against Latvia (October 15th) in October. But now Kuntz has lost his job. “I have followed his development very closely both in Bremen and now in Heidenheim and am convinced that he has what it takes to make it into the Turkish national team,” Kuntz assures kicker. Now Dinkci has to hope that Kuntz’s successor Vincenzo Montella also sees it that way.
If so, Dinkci could go down in history as 1. FC Heidenheim’s first senior national player. Two names come to mind in this context, but Ben Halloran had already come to Heidenheim as an Australian national player in 2015, but was not used for his country again during his time at Schlossberg until December 2017 or after that. And Baard Finne, who played in Heidenheim for a year from winter 2016, only became a national player much later and played two international matches for 2023
Norway. The coming week will be a particularly exciting one for Dinkci when Turkey names the next squad between Heidenheim’s next Bundesliga games against Union Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt.
2023-09-28 09:06:21
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